There is currently a need for rapid and cheap polynucleotide (e.g. DNA or RNA) sequencing and identification technologies across a wide range of applications. Existing technologies are slow and expensive mainly because they rely on amplification techniques to produce large volumes of polynucleotide and require a high quantity of specialist fluorescent chemicals for signal detection.
Transmembrane pores (nanopores) have great potential as direct, electrical biosensors for polymers and a variety of small molecules. In particular, recent focus has been given to nanopores as a potential DNA sequencing technology.
When a potential is applied across a nanopore, there is a change in the current flow when an analyte, such as a nucleotide, resides transiently in the barrel for a certain period of time. Nanopore detection of the nucleotide gives a current change of known signature and duration. In the strand sequencing method, a single polynucleotide strand is passed through the pore and the identities of the nucleotides are derived. Strand sequencing can involve the use of a polynucleotide binding protein to control the movement of the polynucleotide through the pore.
The different forms of Msp are porins from Mycobacterium smegmatis. MspA is a 157 kDa octameric porin from Mycobacterium smegmatis. Wild-type MspA does not interact with DNA in a manner that allows the DNA to be characterised or sequenced. The structure of MspA and the modifications required for it to interact with and characterise DNA have been well documented (Butler, 2007, Nanopore Analysis of Nucleic Acids, Doctor of Philosophy Dissertation, University of Washington; Gundlach, Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 2010 Sep. 14; 107(37):16060-5. Epub 2010 Aug. 26; and International Application No. PCT/GB2012/050301 (published as WO/2012/107778). Negative charges, such as those at positions 90, 91 and 93, are typically removed from the pore to make it neutral.